"People have to learn sometimes not only how much the heart, but how much
the head, can bear." -Maria Mitchell
Chapter Four: "The Unlikely Surprise"
---
AUTHORS NOTES: On Chapter Four
Note One: This part of the story is concerned heavily with the failed attempt by Gen. Benedict Arnold to turn over West Point to the British. For those readers unfamiliar with this event in history and those who need a bit of a refresher course, I am going to provide a quick synopsis of the events. If you are interested in more information, this is discussed in great deal in any good Benedict Arnold biography. Also, a good version of the Andre/Arnold story can be found here:
Note Two: (The Surrender of West Point, The Death of Andre, and etc.) Benedict Arnold, infamous traitor to the patriot cause, had been negotiating the surrender of West Point with the British for some time. In September of 1780, Arnold demanded a personal meeting with John Andre, head of British intelligence. To make a long story short, Andre ended up being stranded behind enemy lines. He was arrested for spying. Gen. Washington offered to exchange Andre for Arnold, however, turning over someone who willingly came over to the British side was considered dishonorable. Therefore, British General Clinton was forced to decline. Andre was hung as a spy on Oct. 2nd, 1780 (according to history, not according to this story, of course!).
Note Three: The characters of Major Andre's aunts are completely fictional creations.
Note Four: If you are reading this story, and you haven't already, I highly recommend that you see the A&E movie "Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor." Though it isn't the best movie ever, and I find it a bit hard to accept the guy who plays Fraiser as Washington, it does feature many of the characters who star in this particular fic and inspired this story perhaps more than "The Patriot" did.
---
~France, 1782~
The traitor often wondered, when there was nothing else to wonder about, how Benedict Arnold lived. Had he returned to England, the lovely Mrs. Arnold, formerly Miss Shippen, still by his side? Was he an object of scorn now that the war was lost? He knew, of course, the Clinton would never trust the man completely. Clinton never trusted anyone completely.
Of course, unless he had died, Arnold's acquaintance presumed that he was undoubtedly in a better situation that his own.
Caroline Giradot, despite the fact that she had three very beautiful sisters, was a rather stout, ruddy-faced, woman with a decidedly sour disposition that did little to improve her appearance. Caroline scowled at her sister Elisabeth, who was whistling a cheery tune while she hung laundry on the clothesline to dry, and wondered what there was to be happy about. Slaving away over steaming tubs of filthy clothes, teaching the local children at a school set up in the parlor, only to be able to afford enough food for the eight people who lived in the decaying French country house hardly seemed worthy of whistling. Yet, Elisabeth was doing so, and as cheerfully as a songbird greeting the morning sun. Celine, the middle sister, seemed to take no notice of her older sister's foul mood or her younger sister's cheerful one. She simply continued stirring the vat of clothes and muttering things under her breath that no one could ever hope to understand.
Caroline dried her wet, soapy, red hands on her ancient tattered apron.
"He seems so convinced that he's going to die, why can't he just hurry up and do it!"
Elisabeth immediately ceased her cheerful whistling and turned to face her sister.
"Caroline, how cruel! You mustn't say such things!"
Caroline plucked a sheet down from the line and began folding it neatly. She ran her tongue over her blubbery cracked lips.
"I am not being cruel," the oldest Giradot sister explained. "I am merely being practical. We work like dogs and we barely eat. Besides, I would rather do away with him than with your children."
Elisabeth's eyes grew wide. Unlike her two sisters, she had been part of an unusually loving marriage, and after her husband's unexpected death the three children served as her only reminder of happier times.
Caroline shrugged. "If I sent them away, you would be so overcome by sorrow I fear it might render you incapable of work. Besides, they are blood."
"And our dear sister Marie's son is not?"
The older sister sighed heavily. She had thought that certainly Elisabeth of all people would understand the difference.
"Blood or not, he is British," Caroline spat. "Your children are French. Therefore, there is a difference."
"Perhaps I don't see as clearly as you, sister," Elisabeth whispered.
Caroline placed the folded sheet atop a pile of similarly folded sheets and plucked the next one from the line.
"Besides, the children have an excuse for not contributing to our income," Caroline grumbled. "He does not! I swear he could become quite the capable young man if only he would try. Instead all of the money that could go to providing us with a finer life is wasted on doctors from Paris!"
"Caroline! That will be quite enough!" Elisabeth announced, as was only characteristic of her when she was truly annoyed. "You leave the poor dear alone. You have no idea what he has been through. Besides, if you would not talk so much we would finish with this vile work much faster."
Caroline snorted and went about her work, not saying another word. Celine cackled maniacally. She always enjoyed Elisabeth's victories.
The Giradot house had once stood elegantly, surrounded by gardens, not far from Paris. However, due to apathy and the loss of funds for upkeep, it now stood in exactly the same spot only in a less elegant condition. The gardens were long overgrown with weeds or picked apart by the children who attended Elisabeth's parlor grammar school. The roof leaked in the rain, the snow, and sometimes (Caroline claimed) when it was perfectly pleasant out. Several chickens ran loose about the yard, as no one cared to put the time and effort into repairing the henhouse. Elisabeth's children ran about also, often in such a wild manner that they were nearly indistinguishable from the barnyard fowl. Several windows had been broken and the others were coated in a thick layer of dust, dirt, and grime.
John Andre, former head of intelligence for the British army and beloved aide to Gen. Clinton, watched his three aunts bicker from behind one of the dirty third floor windows. Andre suspected, correctly, that Caroline was complaining about him once again. It seemed to the Englishman that this was her favorite pastime.
Andre winced as the physician's knife cut into his arm. He remembered a time when this had actually hurt. Now it was nothing more than a slight unpleasantness followed by the warmth of his own blood against his skin. Nothing hurt anymore, or hurt bad enough to overcome the persistent ache in his head and heart.
"Monsieur Andre?"
Andre turned his gaze away from the window and fixed his now dull eyes on the doctor from Paris. Monsieur Beneveaux had once been one of the most respected and sought after doctors in Paris, that had changed after a large number of his patients died regardless of his attentions. Beneveaux had accepted this as fate. Despite the nearly non-existent demand for his services, he remained willing to provide his services where needed for a very reasonable price. This was precisely what had attracted the attentions of Caroline.
"What is it, Beneveaux?" the former officer inquired.
Beneveaux sighed. "Monsieur Andre, I have been practically your personal physician for the past year."
"Indeed. So, that is how long I have been condemned to live in this insufferable house," Andre remarked off-handedly, turning his attention back to the scene unfolding on the lawn below.
"And, in that time, I must say that I could not help but notice several things concerning your condition." Beneveaux paused to give his patient an opportunity to inquire into the nature of the observations. Andre said nothing, so the doctor simply continued. "The main conclusion I have drawn, sir," the doctor said cautiously, "is that there is nothing physically wrong with you."
At this, a spark of anger flashed across Andre's eyes, which fixed themselves again on Beneveaux.
"What do you mean by that?" Andre snapped. "I am a very sick man. Anyone, even those completely uneducated in medicine, could tell you that. Do you think I would have you come here from Paris with your leeches and your knives if I were not ill?"
"I never said that you weren't ill," the doctor explained, wiping blood from the cut in Andre's arm and applying a new linen bandage, "only that there is nothing physically wrong with you. You are obviously very, very ill, Monsieur Andre. I believe it is your mind, however, and not your body, that ails you."
"You think I'm mad?" Andre questioned, eyes narrowing. He thought Beneveaux himself must have gone mad for even suggesting such a thing.
Finished with bandaging, the doctor took a seat in a nearby chair, one of the few pieces of furniture in the small, dusty room aside from the bed. The only thing of interest was the neglected portrait of a young woman hanging above a fireplace that contained some smoldering ashes.
"Your mother?" Beneveaux asked, noticing the similarities of thick brown hair and bright, intelligent eyes between the portrait and the young man lying on the bed.
"Attempting to change the subject?"
"No sir," the doctor replied quickly. "And I do not think you are mad."
Andre closed his eyes, the sunlight streaming through the window giving his eyelids a dark purple hue. "What do you think then?"
"You once told me that you betrayed your country," the Frenchman said. "I know that you won't tell me the entire story, but I believe that you feel so much guilt over whatever you have done or believe that you have done that it is destroying you in much the same manner as consumption or any other such illness. You hate this house, you despise your aunts, and we French repulse you. By staying here, you simply intensify your own misery." Beneveaux pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "And, with all due respect, Monsieur Andre, I think you remain here for that very reason. There are bound be other reasons why you are unable to return to England, but you remain in this house because you believe you deserve this misery."
Andre's eyes snapped open. "Get out!" he commanded. "Leave and do not come back. You are my physician. You only say such things to make up for your own lack of skill."
Beneveaux sighed. "I suspected you would say something to that effect." He bowed low. "I will take my leave then, Monsieur Andre, for making you well again is beyond my skill as a physician. It's beyond anyone's skill, except your own will."
Andre turned to face the window again, blocking Beneveaux from his view completely, denying and accepting everything he had been told all at the same time.
"I hope you will accept this as something of a parting gift," the doctor said, placing a small package on the table next to the bed.
There was the sound of footsteps, a door closed, and Beneveaux was gone. Andre stared at the window for quite some time longer, unable to see anything beyond the glass. For the first time since the night after he awoke dreadfully ill and still in the company of colonials, the former British officer felt hot tears stinging his eyes. Andre cursed his own weakness, remembering his perfectly disciplined self that had been so well known to Sir Henry Clinton. Somehow, Major John Andre seemed like a completely different person altogether, someone very different from John Andre, the traitor, the helpless bedridden invalid condemned to a barely tolerable existence in the home of his mother's foul sisters.
"Beneveaux understands nothing," Andre reassured himself, pieced his shattered delusion together once more. "I misjudged the amount of poison. Instead of allowing me to escape from certain death, it condemned me to a worse fate."
He remembered nothing, only waking still surrounded by the enemy, and being told of the dozens of British military secrets he had divulged in his delirium. Thus had John Andre betrayed the British Empire, and thus he had been betrayed by his own weakness.
Needing a distracting from such reflections, Andre turned his attention to the package. He could tell without removing the paper wrapper that it was a book of some sort. Tearing off the paper, he was unimpressed by the seemingly commonplace volume bound in red leather. It was only upon noticing the title stamped into the leather that the great intelligence officer received one of the first true surprises of his life.
"Winsome Wanderings: The Poetry and Other Assorted Works of John Andre"
Caroline Giradot was unaware that any such book had ever been published, and assuming she had known it is quite unlikely that she would have cared at all. Caroline had never been the sort to care much for any other poetry besides the natural poetry of efficiency. Holding one of the few remaining chickens in one hand and her favorite cleaver in the other, having finished with the washing she set about in the grim task of preparing supper.
Despite what might be suggested by her demeanor, Caroline disliked the bloody task of beheading. The chicken squawked in protest as she put its neck to the block.
"Quiet, Stella," Caroline cooed. "There, there, don't make this any more difficult."
She raised the cleaver.
"Madame Giradot?"
The voice of Doctor Beneveaux gave Caroline such a start that she loosened her grip just enough to allow Stella a narrow escape. With another squawk of defiance, Stella hurried to rejoin her fellow chickens.
"Do pardon me, Madame," the doctor said, fumbling the words a bit. "I did not mean to interrupt."
"Think nothing of it," Caroline snapped. "Actually, I am not in the mood for chicken this evening. Stella could use a bit more fattening up anyway."
Caroline managed a smile that bordered on genuine. She thought it best to be civil with Beneveaux lest he decided to start charging more.
"What is it you want?"
"I am leaving, Madame. My services are no longer needed here."
The eldest Giradot sister's smile widened. "And why is that, my dear doctor?"
"My services are no longer needed here," Beneveaux explained. "You may send what I am owed to my Paris address. You will have no difficulty in doing so, I assume?"
"Oh, of course not!" Caroline answered. "No difficulty at all. Thank you, doctor."
"And I thank you, Madame Giradot." With yet another bow, the doctor turned and walked away from the dilapidated Giradot house for the last time.
As she walked toward the kitchen, Caroline found herself feeling slightly guilty now that she truly was unable to remove the smile from her face. There was something that seemed inherently wrong in finding joy where most would find sorrow. It was one thing to speak of finding such joy, it was quite another to actually experience it.
What the doctor had said could only mean one thing.
"He is British," Caroline reminded herself. "They are dogs. This is for the best. Do not waste your time on guilt."
She thought of the tune Elisabeth had been whistling earlier and tried, unsuccessfully, to take it up herself.
Chapter Four: "The Unlikely Surprise"
---
AUTHORS NOTES: On Chapter Four
Note One: This part of the story is concerned heavily with the failed attempt by Gen. Benedict Arnold to turn over West Point to the British. For those readers unfamiliar with this event in history and those who need a bit of a refresher course, I am going to provide a quick synopsis of the events. If you are interested in more information, this is discussed in great deal in any good Benedict Arnold biography. Also, a good version of the Andre/Arnold story can be found here:
Note Two: (The Surrender of West Point, The Death of Andre, and etc.) Benedict Arnold, infamous traitor to the patriot cause, had been negotiating the surrender of West Point with the British for some time. In September of 1780, Arnold demanded a personal meeting with John Andre, head of British intelligence. To make a long story short, Andre ended up being stranded behind enemy lines. He was arrested for spying. Gen. Washington offered to exchange Andre for Arnold, however, turning over someone who willingly came over to the British side was considered dishonorable. Therefore, British General Clinton was forced to decline. Andre was hung as a spy on Oct. 2nd, 1780 (according to history, not according to this story, of course!).
Note Three: The characters of Major Andre's aunts are completely fictional creations.
Note Four: If you are reading this story, and you haven't already, I highly recommend that you see the A&E movie "Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor." Though it isn't the best movie ever, and I find it a bit hard to accept the guy who plays Fraiser as Washington, it does feature many of the characters who star in this particular fic and inspired this story perhaps more than "The Patriot" did.
---
~France, 1782~
The traitor often wondered, when there was nothing else to wonder about, how Benedict Arnold lived. Had he returned to England, the lovely Mrs. Arnold, formerly Miss Shippen, still by his side? Was he an object of scorn now that the war was lost? He knew, of course, the Clinton would never trust the man completely. Clinton never trusted anyone completely.
Of course, unless he had died, Arnold's acquaintance presumed that he was undoubtedly in a better situation that his own.
Caroline Giradot, despite the fact that she had three very beautiful sisters, was a rather stout, ruddy-faced, woman with a decidedly sour disposition that did little to improve her appearance. Caroline scowled at her sister Elisabeth, who was whistling a cheery tune while she hung laundry on the clothesline to dry, and wondered what there was to be happy about. Slaving away over steaming tubs of filthy clothes, teaching the local children at a school set up in the parlor, only to be able to afford enough food for the eight people who lived in the decaying French country house hardly seemed worthy of whistling. Yet, Elisabeth was doing so, and as cheerfully as a songbird greeting the morning sun. Celine, the middle sister, seemed to take no notice of her older sister's foul mood or her younger sister's cheerful one. She simply continued stirring the vat of clothes and muttering things under her breath that no one could ever hope to understand.
Caroline dried her wet, soapy, red hands on her ancient tattered apron.
"He seems so convinced that he's going to die, why can't he just hurry up and do it!"
Elisabeth immediately ceased her cheerful whistling and turned to face her sister.
"Caroline, how cruel! You mustn't say such things!"
Caroline plucked a sheet down from the line and began folding it neatly. She ran her tongue over her blubbery cracked lips.
"I am not being cruel," the oldest Giradot sister explained. "I am merely being practical. We work like dogs and we barely eat. Besides, I would rather do away with him than with your children."
Elisabeth's eyes grew wide. Unlike her two sisters, she had been part of an unusually loving marriage, and after her husband's unexpected death the three children served as her only reminder of happier times.
Caroline shrugged. "If I sent them away, you would be so overcome by sorrow I fear it might render you incapable of work. Besides, they are blood."
"And our dear sister Marie's son is not?"
The older sister sighed heavily. She had thought that certainly Elisabeth of all people would understand the difference.
"Blood or not, he is British," Caroline spat. "Your children are French. Therefore, there is a difference."
"Perhaps I don't see as clearly as you, sister," Elisabeth whispered.
Caroline placed the folded sheet atop a pile of similarly folded sheets and plucked the next one from the line.
"Besides, the children have an excuse for not contributing to our income," Caroline grumbled. "He does not! I swear he could become quite the capable young man if only he would try. Instead all of the money that could go to providing us with a finer life is wasted on doctors from Paris!"
"Caroline! That will be quite enough!" Elisabeth announced, as was only characteristic of her when she was truly annoyed. "You leave the poor dear alone. You have no idea what he has been through. Besides, if you would not talk so much we would finish with this vile work much faster."
Caroline snorted and went about her work, not saying another word. Celine cackled maniacally. She always enjoyed Elisabeth's victories.
The Giradot house had once stood elegantly, surrounded by gardens, not far from Paris. However, due to apathy and the loss of funds for upkeep, it now stood in exactly the same spot only in a less elegant condition. The gardens were long overgrown with weeds or picked apart by the children who attended Elisabeth's parlor grammar school. The roof leaked in the rain, the snow, and sometimes (Caroline claimed) when it was perfectly pleasant out. Several chickens ran loose about the yard, as no one cared to put the time and effort into repairing the henhouse. Elisabeth's children ran about also, often in such a wild manner that they were nearly indistinguishable from the barnyard fowl. Several windows had been broken and the others were coated in a thick layer of dust, dirt, and grime.
John Andre, former head of intelligence for the British army and beloved aide to Gen. Clinton, watched his three aunts bicker from behind one of the dirty third floor windows. Andre suspected, correctly, that Caroline was complaining about him once again. It seemed to the Englishman that this was her favorite pastime.
Andre winced as the physician's knife cut into his arm. He remembered a time when this had actually hurt. Now it was nothing more than a slight unpleasantness followed by the warmth of his own blood against his skin. Nothing hurt anymore, or hurt bad enough to overcome the persistent ache in his head and heart.
"Monsieur Andre?"
Andre turned his gaze away from the window and fixed his now dull eyes on the doctor from Paris. Monsieur Beneveaux had once been one of the most respected and sought after doctors in Paris, that had changed after a large number of his patients died regardless of his attentions. Beneveaux had accepted this as fate. Despite the nearly non-existent demand for his services, he remained willing to provide his services where needed for a very reasonable price. This was precisely what had attracted the attentions of Caroline.
"What is it, Beneveaux?" the former officer inquired.
Beneveaux sighed. "Monsieur Andre, I have been practically your personal physician for the past year."
"Indeed. So, that is how long I have been condemned to live in this insufferable house," Andre remarked off-handedly, turning his attention back to the scene unfolding on the lawn below.
"And, in that time, I must say that I could not help but notice several things concerning your condition." Beneveaux paused to give his patient an opportunity to inquire into the nature of the observations. Andre said nothing, so the doctor simply continued. "The main conclusion I have drawn, sir," the doctor said cautiously, "is that there is nothing physically wrong with you."
At this, a spark of anger flashed across Andre's eyes, which fixed themselves again on Beneveaux.
"What do you mean by that?" Andre snapped. "I am a very sick man. Anyone, even those completely uneducated in medicine, could tell you that. Do you think I would have you come here from Paris with your leeches and your knives if I were not ill?"
"I never said that you weren't ill," the doctor explained, wiping blood from the cut in Andre's arm and applying a new linen bandage, "only that there is nothing physically wrong with you. You are obviously very, very ill, Monsieur Andre. I believe it is your mind, however, and not your body, that ails you."
"You think I'm mad?" Andre questioned, eyes narrowing. He thought Beneveaux himself must have gone mad for even suggesting such a thing.
Finished with bandaging, the doctor took a seat in a nearby chair, one of the few pieces of furniture in the small, dusty room aside from the bed. The only thing of interest was the neglected portrait of a young woman hanging above a fireplace that contained some smoldering ashes.
"Your mother?" Beneveaux asked, noticing the similarities of thick brown hair and bright, intelligent eyes between the portrait and the young man lying on the bed.
"Attempting to change the subject?"
"No sir," the doctor replied quickly. "And I do not think you are mad."
Andre closed his eyes, the sunlight streaming through the window giving his eyelids a dark purple hue. "What do you think then?"
"You once told me that you betrayed your country," the Frenchman said. "I know that you won't tell me the entire story, but I believe that you feel so much guilt over whatever you have done or believe that you have done that it is destroying you in much the same manner as consumption or any other such illness. You hate this house, you despise your aunts, and we French repulse you. By staying here, you simply intensify your own misery." Beneveaux pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "And, with all due respect, Monsieur Andre, I think you remain here for that very reason. There are bound be other reasons why you are unable to return to England, but you remain in this house because you believe you deserve this misery."
Andre's eyes snapped open. "Get out!" he commanded. "Leave and do not come back. You are my physician. You only say such things to make up for your own lack of skill."
Beneveaux sighed. "I suspected you would say something to that effect." He bowed low. "I will take my leave then, Monsieur Andre, for making you well again is beyond my skill as a physician. It's beyond anyone's skill, except your own will."
Andre turned to face the window again, blocking Beneveaux from his view completely, denying and accepting everything he had been told all at the same time.
"I hope you will accept this as something of a parting gift," the doctor said, placing a small package on the table next to the bed.
There was the sound of footsteps, a door closed, and Beneveaux was gone. Andre stared at the window for quite some time longer, unable to see anything beyond the glass. For the first time since the night after he awoke dreadfully ill and still in the company of colonials, the former British officer felt hot tears stinging his eyes. Andre cursed his own weakness, remembering his perfectly disciplined self that had been so well known to Sir Henry Clinton. Somehow, Major John Andre seemed like a completely different person altogether, someone very different from John Andre, the traitor, the helpless bedridden invalid condemned to a barely tolerable existence in the home of his mother's foul sisters.
"Beneveaux understands nothing," Andre reassured himself, pieced his shattered delusion together once more. "I misjudged the amount of poison. Instead of allowing me to escape from certain death, it condemned me to a worse fate."
He remembered nothing, only waking still surrounded by the enemy, and being told of the dozens of British military secrets he had divulged in his delirium. Thus had John Andre betrayed the British Empire, and thus he had been betrayed by his own weakness.
Needing a distracting from such reflections, Andre turned his attention to the package. He could tell without removing the paper wrapper that it was a book of some sort. Tearing off the paper, he was unimpressed by the seemingly commonplace volume bound in red leather. It was only upon noticing the title stamped into the leather that the great intelligence officer received one of the first true surprises of his life.
"Winsome Wanderings: The Poetry and Other Assorted Works of John Andre"
Caroline Giradot was unaware that any such book had ever been published, and assuming she had known it is quite unlikely that she would have cared at all. Caroline had never been the sort to care much for any other poetry besides the natural poetry of efficiency. Holding one of the few remaining chickens in one hand and her favorite cleaver in the other, having finished with the washing she set about in the grim task of preparing supper.
Despite what might be suggested by her demeanor, Caroline disliked the bloody task of beheading. The chicken squawked in protest as she put its neck to the block.
"Quiet, Stella," Caroline cooed. "There, there, don't make this any more difficult."
She raised the cleaver.
"Madame Giradot?"
The voice of Doctor Beneveaux gave Caroline such a start that she loosened her grip just enough to allow Stella a narrow escape. With another squawk of defiance, Stella hurried to rejoin her fellow chickens.
"Do pardon me, Madame," the doctor said, fumbling the words a bit. "I did not mean to interrupt."
"Think nothing of it," Caroline snapped. "Actually, I am not in the mood for chicken this evening. Stella could use a bit more fattening up anyway."
Caroline managed a smile that bordered on genuine. She thought it best to be civil with Beneveaux lest he decided to start charging more.
"What is it you want?"
"I am leaving, Madame. My services are no longer needed here."
The eldest Giradot sister's smile widened. "And why is that, my dear doctor?"
"My services are no longer needed here," Beneveaux explained. "You may send what I am owed to my Paris address. You will have no difficulty in doing so, I assume?"
"Oh, of course not!" Caroline answered. "No difficulty at all. Thank you, doctor."
"And I thank you, Madame Giradot." With yet another bow, the doctor turned and walked away from the dilapidated Giradot house for the last time.
As she walked toward the kitchen, Caroline found herself feeling slightly guilty now that she truly was unable to remove the smile from her face. There was something that seemed inherently wrong in finding joy where most would find sorrow. It was one thing to speak of finding such joy, it was quite another to actually experience it.
What the doctor had said could only mean one thing.
"He is British," Caroline reminded herself. "They are dogs. This is for the best. Do not waste your time on guilt."
She thought of the tune Elisabeth had been whistling earlier and tried, unsuccessfully, to take it up herself.